Page 20 of Swept By The Alien Pirate Prince

“I’ll be right there,” I said and turned toward Nix. “Cyburn wants the crew to meet at the bridge. He’s trying to get the systems up and running and he needs help. He’s assigned me to work on Silver.”

Nix nodded. The sweat on his forehead glistened under the fluorescent recessed lights above our heads. “Got it.” He paused and frowned. “Is Silver salvageable?”

“She’s going to have to be,” I said. “We need her.”

Nix nodded again, gazed past my shoulder, and licked his lips. Then he wiped the glimmering sweat of his brows with the back of his hand.

“Good luck. I’ll gather the others and we’ll meet you and Cyburn on the bridge.”

“Thank you.” I tapped his forearm with the tips of my fingers and gave him a sentimental smile.

I’d grown fond of Nix. He was a nice guy and had a good, loyal heart. I knew he’d do anything for Cyburn, and vis versa. They were like brothers. They had walked through the fire together and nothing could erase a bond like that.

With my heart in my throat, I made great strides back to the bridge, practically running.

When I got there, Silver was standing up. She wasn’t in the same place on the table where I’d left her, stiff and silent. Now, she had moved several feet in the opposite direction, toward the door of the bridge.

“What happened?” I asked, glancing between her and Cyburn.

Cyburn was still busy behind the desk, messing with the controls.

He glanced over his shoulder when he heard my voice enter the room.

“She just got up and started twitching. She is talking about crazy things.”

“Like what?” I approached Silver and took her arm. “Silver, are you coming back to us?”

Silver blinked. Her mouth made a hissing sound before her jaw slackened and her eyes shut again.

“She’s fading in and out,” I said. Silver’s arm went rigid in my hand.

“She was talking about betrayal and Amada. She was talking about being blasted into space and fireballs. It was just all a bunch of garbled sentences that didn’t really make sense. She was speaking in fragments.”

“It might have something to do with her updated settings,” I said and with my hand still on the A.I.’s arm, I circled to her back and started browsing through the settings on the control panel. When I pressed the formatting button, Silver came back to life with a robotic sound, her head and shoulders straightening.

“Amada,” Silver’s cool, sleek voice breathed. “Changes. Amada. Belic. Enemy target. Cyburn — must — stop…” Silver trailed off and the control panel glitched, blinked white twice, and then turned into a blank, black screen.

“Come on, Silver,” I urged, my tongue sticking out and my eyes narrowed as I leaned over her and concentrated. “Stay with us. You’re on the right track. We’re going to help you. We know it wasn’t your fault.”

I got no response.

I tried a different approach, trying to tackle my frustrations before they got out of my control. “Silver, can you hear me?”

Silver didn’t respond in words, but she made a gurgling sound that expelled from deep in her throat and triggered a nervous alarm inside me. My palms were clammy, and my head was spinning.

“Silver if you can hear me, move your fingers—or…blink,” I requested.

I held still and watched for any movement from the A.I. I craned my neck around Silver’s shoulder to see if her eyelids would flutter.

Sure enough, with a grinding sound, her eyes opened and then closed. The pinky and index finger on her right hand twitched.

“Okay,” I said, my heart pounding with excitement. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Silver, if you understand me, move your fingers again.”

It only took a second for her to obey my gentle commands. Now Silver moved all the fingers on her left hand. Relieve flooded through me to see that she not only had regained motor function of her limbs and extremities, but she could also hear and understand me.

“You’re doing great,” I praised her. “Keep up the good work. You’re showing off and I love it.”

“Is it working?” Cyburn asked me just as Nix and the others rushed onto the bridge, ready to offer any assistance that they could.

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